5 years of Firefox

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Firefox is five years old. We thought that we would celebrate that by talking about how the web has changed over the last five years and Firefox’s role in those changes.

Where We’re At

2009 has been an interesting year. We’re at a crossroads for the Internet. In the next 12 months or so we’re likely to see regulation of the Internet in the United States – possibly for good, possibly for bad. We’ve seen increased interest in the browser space with the entrace of Google with their minimalist Chrome browser. Mozilla put a vastly improved rendering engine into the hands of hundreds of millions of users with the release of Firefox 3.5. The EU is working with Microsoft to implement a ballot to make users aware of browser choice. No one could possibly say that things are boring right now. And this has only been over the last year.

But what has changed over the last five years? What are the main themes? We’ve picked a few to talk about and we hope that it helps put things into perspective for the next five.

The browsers that are on the horizon aren’t just incremental changes – they represent the pieces to build the next generation web – rich with standards-based graphics, new JavaScript libraries and full blown applications.

Standards Won

Firefox’s growth on the web has had another important effect – bringing standards to the forefront of development. Very early in the Mozilla project almost half of the web’s HTML pages started using DOCTYPE in order to opt-in to standards mode for many web browsers. Developers signaled that they wanted to use a standards-based method for development.

That’s important. It set up the current frame for development on the web that we have today. It allowed Apple to take KHTML and turn it into Safari which then allowed Chrome to pick up that work and enter the market and render a standards-based web. Now we don’t have just one or two browsers, but many, and a lot of that has to do with the way that early web developers approached development.

Standards matter, and they should continue to matter. When they do those individual human beings we like to call users benefit with greater choice and fast innovation.

The web is unique, and was built to be hacked. No other widely-deployed system in the world delivers itself as source code like the web does. And this transparency has made it possible for the distributed innovation that we’re seeing in Firefox and on the web. People patching new UI into their favorite web sites, mashing up data from multiple sources or radically changing the feel of the browser itself – this is a source for inspiration for browser vendors and web site operators alike. For the first time individual people have the ability to take an active part in the future of their computing experience.

It’s also worth noting that Gecko and Firefox are unique in this space. The highly modular nature of Gecko mixed with the fact that Firefox itself is written in HTML and XUL (another UI-focused markup language) means that it’s the only browser that’s hackable like the web is. Every other browser is built as a monolithic desktop application from the last millennium. This natural advantage not only means that Firefox has the widest array of add-ons and developers, but is also a source of inspiration for most of the rest of the market.

But we’ve gone far beyond just simple feeds. Advanced APIs are now appearing for web sites so you can integrate native applications, build a Firefox extension or be able to pull your data out of a web site.

And we’ve also moved from the promise of XML to the reality of JSON as the data format of choice.

Video

It’s important to remember that Youtube didn’t exist when Firefox was launched. At that time your only options were native QuickTime, Windows Media or Real Player. (Anyone remember Real Player?)

In the last few years we’ve seen Youtube become one of the largest sites of the Internet, the launch of Hulu, and sites like Netflix offering premium on-demand video right over the Internet to web browsers and devices alike. We’ve also seen millions of people create their own videos and publish them to the web.

We’ve also seen the launch of open video and native video support in browsers to bring the creativity and hackability of the web to currently closed video platforms.

Users as Creators

The rise of the web is a story of anyone being able to create a web site. But that’s still a largely technical exercise, even with tools. What we have seen, thanks to tools like WordPress and blogger, is the growth of weblogs, feeds and data which make it possible for anyone with a web browser to become a publisher or journalist.

And it has moved well beyond just text. People with low-cost tools are making movies and posting them. Remix culture is alive and well, creating comentary and new and exciting creations – all in the hands of pretty normal people.

Mobile

The iPhone taught us that you could build a decent browser for mobile phones and that data was important. Phones, really just in the last five years or so, have shown us that access to data plans that look like what you can get to your house can unleash developer and user creativity.

Mozilla has been at the heart of many of the issues of the Internet over the last five years. We’ve vastly improved the browsing experience for hundreds of millions of people around the world. We’ve managed to keep Microsoft honest and forced them to release newer versions of their browsers. Firefox’s presence was a large factor in Apple being able to ship a browser to its user base as the Mac came back to the market. We’ve made it possible for third party browser vendors like Google to enter the market. We’ve proven that people care about improving their experiences on the web. We’ve given over 330 million people the taste of what it’s like to use an open source product. And we’ve overseen the technical growth of the web through direct action and standardization.

It’s hard to beat that, but we’re going to try. We’ll continue to make competitive browser releases and improve people’s experiences on the web. We’ll continue to innovate on behalf of developers and bring those improvements to the standards space. And we’ll continue to grow our amazing global community of users, developers and activists.

Over the next five years everyone can expect that the browser should take part in a few new areas – to act as the user agent it should be. Issues around data, privacy and identity loom large. You will see the values of Mozilla’s public benefit mission reflected in our product choices in these areas to make users safer and help them understand what it means to share data with web sites.

Expect to see big changes in the video space. HTML5-based video and open video codecs are starting to appear on the web as web developers make individual choices to support a standards-based, royalty-free approach. Expect to see changes in the expectations around the licensing of codecs.

And over the next five years mobile will play an increasingly important role in our lives, and in the future of the web. The decisions of users, carriers, governments and the people who build phones will have far-reaching effects on this new extension to the Internet and how people will access information for decades to come.

Mozilla has a unique place on the Internet. Driven to help improve it as part of our mission expect us to express opinions on decisions that affect its future. We act both through direct action but also through indirect action – sometimes our effects are as important as our actions. We will continue to protect users and we’ll continue to do everything they can to make it possible for the next set of people to come along and build the next great web site.

It’s been a great five years. Let’s make it another five and keep the web moving forward for the benefit of everyone.

[…] From your desktop to your mobile device, Mozilla is committed to building an open and participatory Internet. We’ve come so far in the past five years and we’re incredibly excited about the next five. For a more comprehensive look at where we’ve been and where we’re headed, check out Chris Blizzard’s excellent post on hacks.mozilla.org. […]

[…] From your desktop to your mobile device, Mozilla is committed to building an open and participatory Internet. We’ve come so far in the past five years and we’re incredibly excited about the next five. For a more comprehensive look at where we’ve been and where we’re headed, check out Chris Blizzard’s excellent post on hacks.mozilla.org. […]

[…] Fast forward to 2004: Mozilla and Netscape were on the rocks and it looked like the browser wars had been won. IE was the victor. In order to combat bloat and “feature creep,” however, a ragtag team of coders led by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross built something they called “Phoenix,” then “Firebird,” then, on November 9, 2004, Firefox 1.0 was born. This turned into the Mozilla suite – Firefox and Thunderbird – were born. […]

Happy Birthday Foxy…!
Yes, as your article states FF has shaped the web, and it has done it more than anything out there. In my view, FF was the next thing to hit after Navigator in the history of web.
Have you guys ever wondered when coding, that you actually write history? I mean, think about it. You wrote the best browser out there and it goes to the books. Congratulations about that.!

One last thing, Keep this article with you. Display it five years from today! We will see what we could achieve and what we could not! Five years is not a long time. Keep Rocking Foxy, we love you!

[…] world is different. Firefox has 25% world-wide market share, 330 million users, and a significant impact on the shape of the internet experience. The idea that a non-profit, public- benefit organization like Mozilla can have such an impact on […]

[…] few years and Mozilla has been fighting against Firefox being memory intensive. But, Firefox is poised for more growth as it moves to mobile devices and the promise of HTML5. Firefox will no doubt begin to shape how […]

[…] to distill what this awesome milestone means to me into a single post (Mitchell Baker and Chris Blizzard have some great thoughts). I started working on a top 10 list, but last night as I started to see […]

Congrats on 5 years. I still fondly remember installing Firefox (Firebird) 0.7 on my Blue & White PowerMac G3 in college. I loved that I could get the same browser experience in multiple platforms and I am glad that holds true still today. Great job everyone, but no slacking! IE is still the big dog (less big, but still big) so keep the innovation coming and go get ’em!

Congrats, firefox! Keep the awesome flowing! Thanks for saving us from the dark trecherous thing that was the web (and ie). I’ll join the crusade as soon as i have my coding skills up and running. Cheers!

[…] From your desktop to your mobile device, Mozilla is committed to building an open and participatory Internet. We’ve come so far in the past five years and we’re incredibly excited about the next five. For a more comprehensive look at where we’ve been and where we’re headed, check out Chris Blizzard’s excellent post on hacks.mozilla.org. […]

It wasn’t long after I got my first DSL line installed at my home, the same year that I discovered Linux (command line Slackware) which started my love for Open Source software, and I had just got my first LCD screen(lets just say it was a good year XD). I remember my neighbor bringing over a CD-ROM Disc and telling me I had to see what was on it. Before even thinking, I popped it in my, at the time, 5-year-old gutted Gateway tower and began installing something I had never heard of. I remember asking him what it was and his response was simply: “You are going to love this, trust me!”. He wasn’t kidding, I didn’t know it at the time, but this simple disc held the software that I would soon fall in love with. Contained on that ordinary and simple disc was the not-so-ordinary FireFox beta. At first, honestly, I wasn’t impressed, I laughed and told him, “Ok…looks a lot like Netscape to me, what’s the big deal?”. He told me to play with it for a while and give a chance, so I did. To this day I still don’t know where he got it, nor do I really care, but it opened my eyes. By the end of the week I had said goodbye forever to IE and Netscape (Anyone else remember the old Netscape?). FireFox quickly spread across the net. More and more people were tweaking it and releasing addons, and I downloaded every single one in the beginning. I couldn’t get enough and my poor little FireFox was soon overburdened with so many addons it would barely launch. It was then that I realized that I didn’t need everything and I started to pick-and-choose what I used. I still don’t think I have it perfect, but as more addons come out and I add and subtract as I go along it get’s closer every day.
I have stuck by my little FireFox and with every new release I gain a little more respect and love for the little browser. FireFox hasn’t always been perfect, but I suffered through the bad times with it so I could reach the better times ahead. I remember the greatness of the 1.0 and 2.0 releases and the small fan groups I was with when they were officially release. There were 6 of us for the 1.0 all waiting for it to go live on the Mozilla site. I still have the disc I won from the Mozilla store that has the original 1.5.04 version of Firefox and Thunderbird(Looking back those were my favorite days of using the browser, when everything was still new and fresh). By the time 2.0 was released there were about 40 or so people gathered at a friends house for the official release, it wasn’t the smartest thing to do actually, took us forever to download it sharing one connection, but we waited “patiently” together for the bar to finish its slow movement across the screen. Big cheers went up when one finally finished.
I had moved by the time 3.0 was released so this update I spent alone, it kind of fit 3.0’s release. FireFox 3.0 brought a lot of problems to the browser for me. On both my Mac and my Windows box it would crash often, especially when dealing with JavaScript. I couldn’t figure it out. After a few months I was tempted to try another browser, but I decided that I would stick with it and simply reverted back to an older version of FireFox and patiently waited.
It didn’t take too long before FireFox was back on my desktop, and back in my Dock. Now my little browser is back where it belongs and it is stronger than ever. I was there near the begining and I will be there till the end, as long as it is around I will use and love FireFox! I will always be a fan and supporter!
Forever a FireFox user!

I remember way back in high school (okay, only 5 years ago, but still), my parents wouldn’t let me install Firefox on their computer because they thought it was insecure and a virus. So I ended up installing it on my massive 128MB flash drive and running it off of there.
5 years later, the only thing I’ve used IE for was updating Windows. (But since Vista, I haven’t even had to do that!)

I remember installing fire fox when it came as an application tool on a CD in a computer tech mag when it first evolved. The best part afterwords was having not to depend on IE any more and the fox kept me on the internet. Way to go Fire Fox I was dreading to see the day you would disappear and very thankful your success with creativity has brought you this far. Happy B-day and hopefully you will around for generations to come and be able to keep the pages rolling.

I’ve used Firefox since 1.0, but it wasn’t until it was into its 2.0 series that I had begun to use it regularly and replaced IE as my default browser on my own PC. Since then, I’ve never gone back to IE (unless I had to reinstall Firefox). Firefox has revolutionized web browsing, and personally it changed the way I do my web browsing and my perception of the internet–for the better of course.

To the founder, developers, and other staff at Mozilla, thank for for bringing the great gift to the world wide web that is Firefox. Your innovations are nothing short of spectacular and I’m looking forward to future projects from you.

Happy birthday Firefox…………..i m addicted to firefox, i love it……many times i had shifted to other browser or downloaded other just to 4 test drive ……..but none of then could clallenge to firefoxe before me………i m using windows xp with out IE….even IE has grown well but it lack some feachers like backup of bookmarks also to import when required…….which is available in firefox……anyways great work Mozilla team,4 providing a very good browers …..Thanku

I live in a part of the world where the world of the internet is virtually foreign to many. I have my own pc now, but I used to read a South African computer publication called SACM and enjoyed reading problems that people had about the computers even though I did not have one. I believed that I was preparing myself for the future by reading about computers whilst I could not even afford one at the time. At the time I thought that the monitor was the computer. And I remember reading a great review on SACM or South African Computer Magazine about this browser by Mozilla called Firefox. Whilst almost everyone uses the default browser IE at work, I used Firefox. I have been promoting its use here at BCL Limited even though there are some who can or only want to see the world through IE. I was the only person who could access the web yesterday here at BCL Limited. BCL Limited is a mining and smelting company here in Selibe-Phikwe in Botswana. I did that because I used Firefox whilst others failed using IE.

Greetings and happy birthday from an older Lady who still remembers when her Son told her to try Firefox. Scared as hell to move to
something I had never heard of and trying to keep up with technology,
I have never looked back. You keep going strong, and I’ll keep learning new things. 62 years exploring. Margaret Tennessee

i remember when my mate dani first told me about this back in mid 05, i think the mighty firefox was into ver-1.5 at this time and i loved it, i soon developed a nice tasty dislike for microsofts idiot explorer.
alot has changed indeed since 1.5, was tabbed browsing out back then or did that come in with 2.0? but yeah, today we have a nice crisp interface with all the performance and stabillity that IE will never have :)

Fantastic work promoting open-source concepts and add-on’s. Mozilla and Firefox have made it possible for even the most techo-challenged Grandmothers like myself to enjoy the richness of the internet customized in ways that suit my needs.

WoW is about all I can say I remember using the web way back when Netscape was still around it’s come a long way since then and certainly a LONG way in the past 5 years. It makes it a lot easier to write web pages as you know how they are going to handle there is no need to hack the page or stylesheet for the layout like I’ve had to do for IE6. It did force MS to up it’s game and look at what they did with IE 7 tabbed it, amazing Firefox inovates the rest follow. IF Only you could get some website to come out of the dark ages and support Firefox properly, YES there are a few out there that don’t do it, I know shocking isn’t it..

Congratulations, great work has been done and you guys are an important influence. That being said, I think it’s a bit presuming to only call Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari “modern” browsers and exclude IE. With the direction Firefox and IE have developed lately, the latter’s v8 currently pretty much owns the former’s v3 in regular day-to-day usage. Just be careful to not mess up the momentum you’ve built for yourself.

Congratulations! But there´s not only fun with Firefox 3.5.5, I´m waiting for Firefox 5, that can open mht.files natively. I just installed two AddOns, but they were not able to open my file:
UnMHT 5.4.0 and Mozilla Archive Format 0.16.4, the last one didn´t open my file, the first addon does not work correctly!
My file is a Powerpoint-Presentation converted to a single mht-file,
with UnMHT it opens, but the used javascript seems not to function.
So party but work better!

Firefox is very user friendly and brought lot of good features into internet industry that has changed the concept of browser. We at
MAKE EIT Solutions – web design and web development company India, use Firefox as the official browser for most part of work.

Congratulations Firefox, you filled the void Netscape left, but are doing so much more, when I load software, you are at the Top of my list, amazingly you get better every day,, Happy Birthday, and a job well done!!

Happy 5 yr Birthday Firefox!! and to ALL who have comtributed to it’s development. I have used Firefox since it’s inception and it remains my default browser!!Many many thanks and miles of appreciation to all of you ;)

hello its me asad this is my first post here i have been using firefox since its launch and its awesome the speed of browsing and also the downloads so much faster than ie or opera or any other browser.

ITS FRIENDLY INTERFACE IS SO COOL AND SIMPLE AND EASY TO USE OR NAVIGATE

THANKS TO MOZILLA FOUNDATION THAT THEY HAVE DEVELOPED THIS BROWSER WITH ALL THEIR ETHICS AND HAVE MADE IT SO SIMPLE AND FAST LIKE WE ALL WISHED A BROWSER TO BE.

I have choose Firefox as my main web browser since 2006… i still remember that day when i have problem with the “world most popular web browser” and that is……. now i never look back.. FIREFOX IS THE BEST.. A+++++++++++++++ ….. Happy 5th Anniversary… Cheers

I just love You!
firefox stand apart from its competitors is the add-ons.
I install fist on my computer were my operating system is win 2000 or etc. I used firefox since 2006.
I proud fill when my trick work on only this browser.It’s my default browser.
I always thing for you,
“Richness is not earning more……
Spending more…Or saving more….
Richness is when you need NO MORE”
You done this job always honestly.

Congratulations Firefox,
truly you get better since where launch first time,
Happy Birthday, and a job well done!!

I live by Firefox. When I found it I was in love! It gives simple plain options without all the dangers of that other big browser. I love the control I have. I do use Chrome as well. I never use that other Big Browser.

Firefox is absolutely amazing! It runs better, in my opinion, than IE and feels much more secure. I’ve been using it since 2007 I think…and I prefer to use it at ALL times. But, sadly, some sites will only run on IE. Hopefully, all sites will be compatible with Firefox.

no one knew
where he came from
he never knew himself
call her ma
call him pa
but he was born to someone else
no one fooled
or messed him around
Cause they were all afraid
Ain’t no lies
Ice in the eyes
Of Windows Bill Gates
CHORUS:
Cold hearted software
sometimes bothers, dart in his hand
Cold hearted software
And you can’t trust nothing you don’t understand
Cold hearted software
Cold hearted software

Like a snake
He had no friends
He didn’t need no one
Hurt his pride
Deep inside
He was another mother’s son
Reputation
Broken glass
Everybody prayed
For their lives on the street
Where they happened to meet
Windows Bill Gates
CHORUS
Sometimes you can’t see
The other side
It’s too well hidden
For the naked eye
Sometimes bothers
With his dart in his hand
Two time loser
A broken software
Cold hearted software
Cold hearted software

Thanks 4 completing five years. Firefox is simply best browser with some extra features. I like private browsing, deleting all history by one option, support hindi font for some hindi wesites. Multiple tap is one of the best feature of it.
But it requires some improvements like it crushes during loading heavy websites.
IE has a advantage when playing youtube video, it remember the played links and if we again play that link it directly starts without buffing again which makes IE special, so please try that also.

[…] keeps on improving and let's have it many years more between us. Route: Mozilla Blog | Image: hacks.mozilla.org (advisable to read the article to which it takes this linkage where the Firefox future is analyzed) […]